Life on the road

Well the truck (or bus as we called it) was set up for about 28 people and I think there were 18 of us to start - and the good news was we were losing 4 of them about 5 days later - and we were losing the americans (and canadian).

The truck was comfortable enough, but having been in england for 5 years I will have my minor gripes now. Seats didn't recline, no airconditioning, esky was too small - and thats about it.

Our first drive was a very reasonable 3 hours to get to the camp by the Hwange national Park. We setup our first real camp, scoffed down lunch and then headed to the pool in the camp site. The pool was a wildlife park in itself - full of wonderful insects that preceeded to bite us....so we left pretty quick !! The river we were based on was in flood and the waters had risen about a third over the camp site. So with no pool and no activites until 6am tomorrow we did what you do on these overland trips - drink. We were entertained by Hippos noises from the river - and a lot of alcholol - which is ridiculously cheap here :)

As happens, the hours blurred and we stumbled back to the tent at Stupid oclock. Some short hours later the rain started - and did it rain. We had not put our fly sheet on the tent, but were safe under a tree and only getting marginally wet. The alarm went off not much later for our safari drive as the rain started to stop...

..we feasted on one of 3 breakfasts - eggs on toast (the others being french toast and backed beans on toast). Still in the pitch darkness we left. Now you need to picture this right : 20 people piling onto a safari truck in the dark with a leaking canvas roof, and all of us a little wet as well as hungover.

About 30 mins later we arrived at the Chobe national park (supposedly home to 30,000 elephants) as the sun was coming up - well, trying to come up - but hidden by the dense layers of black clouds !! Our very fat white Sth African guide kept us waiting another 15 mins while all the other cars went by and then off we went.

We stopped by some other cars to be informed by our knowledgeable guide there was a leopard over there behind the green tree.... That was about as specific as "hey, you with the hair"... So we sat there for another 15 mins while our guide come out with other classics as "you should be able to see it, I am too low in the cabin and have no binoculars"... He then moved on to his best material - and I quote " the black guides have very good eyesight - that's one thing they have better than us"....which was greeted with severe suppressed giggles from us - this guy was just like on of the Sth african bad guys from the movies..... what a muppet !

The heavens then proceeded to open with vigour - and we became 20 drenched, cold, hungover tourists trying to look at the animals behind the green trees! I mean it was bucketing down, the animals where hiding from the rain and the breeze blowing through the truck as we drove along felt right from the Antartic. We then mutineed and told him to drive us back to camp - we had enough!

But the bad was counted by the good only a red shower can bring and a change into dry clothes !! And the rain continued to fall, and the river continued to rise... our sunset cruise along the river this afternoon was not looking too good. But after confirming the boat was covered, the roof did not leak and we could take our esky - half of the tour gamely headed out in the rain to thr river.

And glad we were we did !! The rain stopped as we stepped abroad the boat, the drinks in the esky were cold and plentiful and the animals were very willing. Hippos galore, Elephants drinking, crocs etc etc... So we returned to camp pleasantly dry on the outside and wet on the inside !! Returning to the camp bar (I think I will be typing BAR alot in this blog) we had some locals do some excellent african dancing and singing...